


On the Second Go-Around

by Kenzie_Perth



Category: Bleach
Genre: Cross-posted, Gen, Ichigo is Captain, Momo is a badass, Reincarnation, old, re-written, redeemed Aizen?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2018-11-06 15:45:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11039271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kenzie_Perth/pseuds/Kenzie_Perth
Summary: "If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character...Would you slow down? Or speed up?" ― Chuck Palahniuk. Fortunately for Aizen Sousuke, madness doesn't usually have a chance to carry over to the next life. Unfortunately, neither do memories.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> old but this one I'm actually re-writing 'cause it's short

"There are no delusions for the dead. Dying is like waking up after a really good party, when you have one or two seconds of innocent freedom before you recollect all the things you did last night which seemed so logical and hilarious at the time, and then you remember the really amazing thing you did with a lampshade and two balloons, which had them in stitches, and now you realise you're going to have to look a lot of people in the eye today and you're sober now and so are they but you can both remember." - Terry Pratchett.

* * *

 

Voids are difficult to describe when one does not have coherent thoughts, much less senses or a voice.

The entity floating in it wasn't much – just a stripped-down set of instincts and basic programming – the threads of a personality without the cerebral power required to process it.

Eventually, though, through a length of undetermined time – because time passes differently in vacuums, and logic is required to mark time – the entity began to grow. Not physically, of course – who knows if it actually had a physical body or was just a mind floating in the intangible dark– but mentally, expanding and becoming more and more complex until it could remember. And it remembered a name – Aizen Sousuke.

Well, after that, the memories poured back in – the loneliness, the distance between the entity and the other people who could have been considered comrades – the wanting to become transcendent, the urge to share that loneliness, the depravity that the emptiness brought.

All in all, it had not exactly been a good life.

The being that had once been Aizen Sousuke had gotten a second chance, and it sure as heck wasn't repeating the last time. It was too smart for that.

All of a sudden, there was a sensation of dissolving – the entity, the void, and the narration just

dis

a

ppea

red.

It was time to start again.


	2. On Memoriam and Reincarnation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Never Meant to Belong is a good accompaniment to this chapter. 
> 
> It's also worth noting that this completely ignores the manga's actual progression.

A brown-haired, brown-eyed girl was born to the very Japanese Kobayashi family eight months after their shotgun wedding. The girl was a constant source of conflict in her extended family, as they all wondered how she could have a European appearance despite her genetic lineage. The father's side of the family not-so-secretly wondered about the actual identity of the girl's father. (Her mother had had a strong urge to name her Sousuke, despite the fact that that was a masculine name. Instead, she named her child after her mother.)

The girl's eyes gave her parents shivers; they were far too old for a baby's; her father had trouble holding her because of that.

At age four, she picked out a pair of brown, square-rimmed wire-framed glasses that, despite her mother's insistence that they suited a much older person better, she stubbornly clung to.

She also began to see spirits.

Kobayashi Shizuka first saw a shinigami at five years old, clinging on to her mother's hand at the zoo. It was an odd ghost, not at all like the ones on she saw on a regular basis, wearing black robes and shocking red hair in a pony tail down its back. It had its back turned, but somehow it seemed just a touch familiar – left a niggling sensation in the back of her mind, a wondering. Then she turned back around to watch the lions maul a cow carcass.

Around that time, she discovered how good she was at lying and manipulating.

* * *

 

When she was ten, there was another shinigami. It appeared around the same time her parents had announced their intent to divorce – two days after, actually, and three days before her birthday and a trip to a waterpark. (She hated water – it felt fake for some reason.)

This time, she was walking back from school when a black-robed girl ran out of the wall of a building – a hospital. Black hair hid her face – she was looking in the opposite direction, where a terrifying, familiar roar had sounded. For some reason, the sight of her made Shizuka's chest hurt, like there was something obstructing her heartbeat. And then the girl dashed off, and the feeling disappeared, replaced by an intense wave of guilt.

Her parents divorced three months later, and her mother moved to Sasazuke. Her father and Shizuka stayed in Karakura Town. After the divorce, life began to get better. She began to have friends, people she respected – who cared about her. She smiled more.

(And she kept her friends at arms length and used them when it suited her. And inside, she broke just a little bit, because this felt so familiar, and it felt like death  _and she couldn't stop_ )

Just one year later, Shizuka encountered her third shinigami.

She had been walking back from school again, and a hollow (that's what it was called, wasn't it) had appeared. She was going to die, she was sure. It was a rather calm revelation. And then Ichigo had shunpoed in out of nowhere, sliced the Hollow's mask neatly in two, and had turned around to speak to her – and he froze. So did Shizuka.

No, not Shizuka.

Aizen Sousuke looked at the face of his enemy once again, and for the perhaps only the second time in his memory, did not know what to say.

The constant trickle of memories returning was like a waterfall in the back of his mind – but it would be ignored for now.

With the memories came the unconscious release of stored up reiatsu, swamping the area and unconsciously forcing Ichigo to raise his own.

Strangely enough, looking at his killer did not inspire any of the emotions Sousuke thought it would – just surprise and a touch of curiosity.

Ichigo's face was difficult to read, all other emotions hidden behind pure shock.

Then, he closed his mouth. "Aizen?"

There was a disbelieving air to his voice, a desperate hopelessness. It was terrifying to see the effect Aizen's appearance had, to be honest. But Aizen shoved down all the misgivings, smiled, and said, "The one and only."

The words seemed to bring Ichigo out of his shock, and he reeled back from his close position. "Wh-wh-what are you –" His words stuttered to a stop, and his expression regained its calm. "You were reborn. I see."

It was rather impressive, actually, to see how much the little Ryoka boy had become so controlled. 

"Would you believe me if I said that I changed?" There were very few ways that Aizen was getting out of this situation alive, especially with Ichigo's unpredictable nature. That was one of the things that made him lose the war in the first place.

Him.

Her.

Oh, this was going to be complicated. This was also not the time for an identity crisis – save that until after hopefully surviving this.

And Ichigo looked at him – her (damnit) for the longest five seconds – and then said with surprising simplicity, "You'd have to prove it."

Aizen could practically see the lightbulb go on over the Ryoka's head. "Hey, Aizen?"

Slowly, cautiously, Aizen said, "Yes?..."

And Ichigo grinned that wide grin of his that infuriated so many shinigami, Kuchiki Byakuya foremost among them, and said, "You have a lot of reiatsu, right? I can feel it from here. So, Hollows are most certainly going to be after you, and those will bring Shinigami who won't like seeing you at all."

That was all correct, and Aizen said as much.

The grin got bigger, if that was possible.

"Well, I have a solution." He paused. "Want to become a Substitute Shinigami?"


	3. why am I re-writing this I want to die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *shrugs* I can't write now and I definitely couldn't write then

The look that Aizen gave Ichigo was difficult to describe. (It was sort of a mix of incredulity and disbelief and the very rational fear of “Momo's going to kill me when she sees me again”.)

Aizen managed to get their voice to work after a few attempts, and what came out was a strangled "What?"

They tried again. "What did you say?"

Ichigo looked rather bemused. "I said that you should become a Substitute Shinigami." He scratched his head. "I don't see anything wrong with that."

Aizen nearly choked at that. Here Ichigo was, faced with his greatest enemy, and instead of acting like any normal person would and trying to get revenge, he was offering refuge? Ah, but Ichigo had never been anything near normal.

The option was tempting, but as much as the Gotei 13 was enamored with him, the Substitute Shinigami position didn't carry nearly enough weight to make this decision.

All that Aizen said out loud, though, was, "How? How can you guarantee my safety?"

Ichigo shrugged. "My position does have some perks."

What position? Sousuke frowned, and then looked, really looked, at Ichigo for the first time in this surprise meeting – and did a double-take. The boy was wearing a white haori.

"Captain?" Sousuke's voice was laced with disbelief.

The human (insomuch as a Shinigami could be human)’s face lit up with a huge grin, and he said proudly, "9th Division!"

And for once, Aizen could think of nothing to say.

* * *

 

Before they went to Soul Society, Aizen said goodbye to her father. The man was lost and confused, hazy in his despair and unsure of why Aizen was leaving – but said goodbye and gave his daughter a hug nonetheless. And then Ichigo erased his memories with a long face and the two sped away.

(They didn't go say goodbye to Aizen's mother.)

They went to Urahara immediately after that, something that Aizen was not happy about.

Urahara wasn't too happy about this either. "Are you sure?" This was the fourth time Urahara Kisuke had asked the question, probably hoping that repetition would change the answer.

Ichigo grinned. "Never been surer." And with that, Kisuke gave up.

He turned to Aizen, not even bothering to hide the loathing. "I'll be watching you – you make one move, you hurt one person – I'll personally make sure you don't get reborn again."

There was acidity in his voice that was quite unusual, and it took Aizen aback, though it really shouldn't have.

So the reborn traitor smiled and said, "You're really one to talk."

* * *

 

They had made it into the Soul Society without a hitch; Ichigo had opened the Senkaimon after Urahara had done his job, and the two had walked straight through – straight through to the streets of Seireitei.

Unfortunately, they managed to open the gate right in front of the Shinigami Woman's Association's headquarters right as the meeting adjourned.

The first face that Aizen saw when he reentered the streets of the Soul Society was the face of Momo Hinamori.

The first thought that he had was that whoever controlled the gates was going to die.

And they wouldn't even know it.


End file.
